But many aspects of those blueprints are based on Donald Trump’s own words, his campaign website and an adviser whom the campaign asked to speak.
NYT > U.S. > Politics
‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves’ is inspired by the first Black Deputy U.S. Marshal
Actor and producer David Oyelowo joins Morning Joe to discuss the new miniseries ‘Lawmen: Bass Reeves,’ which is based on the true story of Bass Reeves, who became the first Black Deputy U.S. Marshal to serve west of the Mississippi River.
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“We are sleepwalking towards authoritarianism,” says scholar who studies democracy
The New Republic’s Michael Tomasky and Professor Brian Klaas discuss former President Trump’s recent remarks at a campaign stop where he pledges to root out ‘vermin’ if given a second term. Tomasky and Klaas discuss the historical parallels for Trump’s language.
Go to Source: Morning Joe
Efforts continue to rally U.S. support for Ukrainian aid
Filmmaker Aaron Kaufman discusses covering the war in Ukraine and his documentary film ‘Superpower.’ Philanthropist Daniel Lubetzky also discusses his foundation’s efforts to rally support for Ukrainian aid.
Go to Source: Morning Joe
100,000 people expected in D.C. for ‘March for Israel’
100,000 people are expected to gather Tuesday afternoon on the National Mall in a forceful show of support for Israel and to condemn antisemitism in the wake of increased bias incidents across the U.S. NBC News’ Maggie Vespa reports.
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‘How ridiculous’: Joe reacts to Trump campaign’s defense of ‘vermin’ comment
Donald Trump’s campaign spokesman Steven Cheung defended Trump’s use of the word “vermin” to describe political enemies in a statement to the Washington Post, calling critics “snowflakes” whose “entire existence will be crushed” if Trump wins in 2024.
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White House weighed polling urging a ‘Bidenomics’ reboot
Earlier this fall, President Joe Biden’s top aides met a pair of progressives who had arrived in the West Wing with reams of data and a private warning: “Bidenomics” wasn’t breaking through.
The White House had spent the past three months trying to build enthusiasm for Biden’s economic record, spotlighting major policy accomplishments and celebrating a surging economy that it planned to make central to his reelection bid.
But voters, discouraged by rising prices and baffled by the “Bidenomics” brand, weren’t buying it. Now Biden’s closest advisers had a raft of fresh evidence confirming it.
Just 35 percent of Americans trusted Democrats more on economic issues, according to weeks of private polling presented to the White House in mid-September and recently obtained by POLITICO. The data reinforced broad concerns over the public’s dismal outlook. Despite expressing widespread support for Biden’s policy agenda, few voters were aware he’d made much progress on any of a dozen-plus top priorities, like drug pricing or infrastructure.
Perhaps most alarming, 7 out of 10 people surveyed believed the economy wasn’t getting better — even after they were explicitly told that inflation had eased and unemployment sat near record lows. That preface, designed specifically to persuade voters to brighten their view of the economy, did not seem to move them.
“When we intentionally put our finger on the scale, and 100 percent of people hear good economic indicators before saying if the economy’s going well for them, we still get walloped,” said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee. The group, alongside Data for Progress, conducted the polling and briefed White House officials, Democratic congressional leaders and top party operatives over several days in September and October.
The meetings — the extent of which have not been previously reported — included sitdowns with members of Biden’s inner circle, as well as top aides charged with shaping Biden’s political and policy strategy ahead of 2024. They offer a window into a White House well aware that its economic message wasn’t resonating, even as it’s repeatedly dismissed such fears as overblown.
Democrats have fretted for months about Biden’s poor economic approval ratings, with some going as far as directly urging the White House to abandon the “Bidenomics” branding, which the administration has used as shorthand for the president’s economic agenda.
Biden’s advisers remain confident their strategy will pay off over the long term. But the private polling discussions provide clues as to how the administration might tweak their argument over the next several months. Biden officials during the sessions pored over data that tested a range of new messages designed to narrow the polling deficit — from more directly targeting Republicans over Donald Trump-era tax cuts to attempting to revive a fight over Social Security.
“Democrats can’t just hammer people over the head with an insistence that the economy is great,” said Green, whose work with the White House on a junk fee initiative over the summer prompted the broader discussions on Bidenomics messaging. “We have to acknowledge pain and pivot, and there are ways that we can optimize that pivot to hit Trump for mismanaging the economy.”
The White House characterized the polling as further confirmation that Biden’s economic agenda is popular with voters, and that the central challenge is convincing them to give him credit.
“What we need to do is boost awareness that it’s the president that brought those things to their lives,” said one senior official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the meetings. “We’re aware, and have been aware, that there’s a gap.”
Biden aides have insisted they’ll soon begin closing that gap by drawing a sharper contrast between Biden and Republicans. They point specifically to a mid-September memo that previewed plans to pit Bidenomics against GOP policies they dubbed “MAGAnomics.”
But there is little sign Americans’ outlook on the economy is improving, frustrating aides even as they maintain that there is plenty of time to turn the trajectory around.
“We’re working every day to show the American people what President Biden and Congressional Democrats have delivered,” White House spokesperson Michael Kikukawa said in a statement, listing progress on drug prices, manufacturing jobs and infrastructure. “We will continue reaching out to the portion of Americans who are not yet aware of those incredibly popular accomplishments.”
The difficulty of that task has surprised even Biden’s staunchest supporters, who concede he started in a deeper hole than anticipated. Voters blame the administration for the sharp rise in basic expenses like groceries, gas and housing, and they remain fixated on the cost of living even as inflation has moderated. They give Biden little credit for pulling the U.S. out of a Covid-induced recession, or for orchestrating record job growth without plunging the country back into a downturn.
“We’ve just had huge GDP numbers, wages are growing in real terms, we have a booming jobs market and we’ve got manufacturing on the rebound,” said Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at centrist Democratic think tank Third Way. But when it comes to getting voters to appreciate that progress, Biden “has work to do. There’s no doubt about it.”
Democratic anxiety over Bidenomics peaked in recent weeks, amid fresh polls showing Biden underwater on economic issues and trailing former President Trump in key swing states. Biden aides quickly dismissed the results, arguing that polling a year out from the election is unreliable.
But the findings reflect entrenched challenges that the White House has been aware of for weeks. The PCCC and Data for Progress polling showed voters overwhelmingly supported central planks of Biden’s agenda — like slashing drug prices, protecting Social Security and eliminating so-called junk fees — only to then say they’d yet to hear much from the president on the topic.
For example, fewer than a third of voters said they’d heard much from Biden about capping the cost of insulin, a wildly popular provision that took effect back in January. Only 20 percent had “heard a lot” about work done to fend off threats to Social Security and Medicare, and even fewer were aware of the administration’s work on veterans’ benefits and child care.
One central barrier, the progressive groups concluded, was that the White House has struggled to distinguish its positioning on several major issues from Republicans. Biden’s insulin cap has spurred relatively little pushback from the GOP since it took effect, depriving him of the kind of sustained partisan back-and-forth that might elevate the subject in voters’ minds.
On Social Security, the president earlier this year goaded Republicans into swearing off cuts to the program, heading off what Democrats anticipated would be a high-volume fight. That represented a major victory in the moment. But the longer-term impact, the PCCC and Data for Progress polling found, is that voters remain divided over whether Biden or Trump would be more likely to protect their benefits. Trump publicly urged Republicans to leave social insurance programs alone during that debt ceiling fight earlier this year. The polling found that many respondents don’t believe Republicans would now slash Social Security.
“Biden was almost a victim of his own success,” said Danielle Deiseroth, executive director at Data for Progress. “Yes, we should be educating voters about [Biden’s policies]. … But it’s also about going on offense and picking fights.”
In meetings with White House aides and congressional leaders, Green and Deiseroth detailed the steep climb Biden faces in convincing voters economic conditions are improving. Voters responded far better when talk of Biden’s record was paired with an acknowledgment the economy remained challenging and a reminder of Trump’s record. But even that approach failed to turn most voters positive on the economy.
The pair have instead urged the administration to hone its Bidenomics message, zeroing in on a handful of popular policies and finding tension points where Biden can bait Republicans into battle. At one point, they floated having Biden propose an expansion of Social Security funded by greater taxes on billionaires, arguing the move would be broadly popular and force the GOP into a debate over both elements.
The senior White House official declined to say how and whether the discussions would influence Biden’s campaign strategy.
But no matter how the White House sharpens his economic argument, Green and Deiseroth said Biden’s ability to break through to voters will depend heavily on better defining what exactly Bidenomics is — and just as importantly, what it’s not.
“It’s about de-wonkifying the message,” Deiseroth said. “When we acknowledge the pain that people have felt and remind them that Republicans are not going to be the savior on this, that’s where we start to gain ground. That’s where it starts to get a lot less scary.”
Go to Source: Politico
Vulnerable Dem senator attended Hollywood fundraiser with donor linked to discrimination scandal
Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont., recently stepped away from his farm to raise money in Hollywood with a high-profile Democrat donor linked to lending discrimination allegations, which comes on the heels of the vulnerable politician also receiving fundraising help from an individual tied to corruption allegations this past summer.
Tester was pictured at a Los Angeles fundraiser on November 4th after the Montana lawmaker had already raked in astronomical amounts of campaign money from the Golden State.
A similar fundraiser for Tester, with many of the same hosts, took place on June 27th – the same day the Montana Democrat was challenged by heavily supported Republican candidate and former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy. During the second and third quarters of this year, he raised nearly $1 million from donors in California.
“Jon Tester knows where his supporters are at—and it’s certainly not Montana,” Montana Republican Party chairman Don “K” Kaltschmidt told Fox News Digital. “Tester votes like California’s Third Senator and elites on the liberal coasts know he’s in lockstep with their far-Left agenda that’s crushing Montanans with sky-high inflation, rising gas prices and higher taxes. Montanans are ready to retire liberal career politician Jon Tester and send a strong conservative to the US Senate in 2024,”
FORMER NAVY SEAL CHALLENGES VULNERABLE DEM SENATOR IN RED STATE RACE VITAL FOR 2024 SENATE MAJORITY
America’s Got Talent host Howie Mandel was listed as a guest at both fundraisers, which had a $500 minimum guest fee and host cost of up to $6,600, according to flyers from the events.
Some of Tester’s fundraiser attendees have also been tied to corruption and discrimination allegations.
Russel Goldsmith, a former top executive at City National Bank which reached an agreement with the Department of Justice to pay $31 million in restitution for “redlining” in Los Angeles County in January 2023, was at both the June and November fundraisers.
When Goldsmith was serving as CEO and chairman between 2017 and 2020, City National Bank reportedly “engaged in a pattern or practice of lending discrimination by ‘redlining’ in Los Angeles County” and “avoided providing mortgage lending services to majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods in Los Angeles County and discouraged residents in these neighborhoods from obtaining mortgage loans,” according to a press release from the Department of Justice.
“In addition, City National only opened one branch in a majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhood in the past twenty years, despite having opened or acquired 11 branches during that time period,” the DOJ press release continued.
Goldsmith also hosted a fundraiser for Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Thomas Safran, a property developer who was also listed on the flyer for Tester’s June event, where the Montana lawmaker was not in attendance, is currently involved in a real estate corruption scandal after giving tens of thousands of dollars to the wife of L.A. City Councilman Curren Price’s consulting firm before Price was scheduled to vote on Safran-related projects. Price was criminally charged for not disclosing the payments that were made to his wife before the vote.
Both the June and November events were hosted by Nancy Stephens and Rick Rosenthal, two of Hollywood’s major Democrat donors.
During the 2014 midterm elections, Stephens blamed the Democrats’ losses on voters “binge-watching Orange is the New Black as though elections don’t have consequences!”
“Where is the disconnect? Is it voter ignorance, or lack of bragging in the things that were accomplished by this president, or is everyone just on Facebook or binge-watching Orange is the New Black as though elections don’t have consequences!” Stephens told the Daily Beast after the election.
William Mutterperl, former member of the Board of Directors of ESG-linked BlackRock, was another listed guest. According to the November flyer, the event was paid for by the Tester Victory Fund.
Tester’s campaign did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for comment.
Tester announced in February he would be seeking re-election in the Montana Senate as Democrats defend 23 of the 34 Senate seats up for grabs next cycle.
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Mother of wrongfully detained American on death row in China calls on Biden to confront Xi: ‘Say Mark’s name’
The mother of an American imprisoned in China for over 10 years and facing execution is calling on President Biden to take action during his upcoming meeting with Chinese President Xi to secure her son’s release for a crime she and many others say he did not commit.
“President Biden, you need to please say Mark’s name and tell him [Xi] what do you want to let him go,” Katherine Swidan, the 73-year-old mother of Mark Swidan told Fox News Digital on Monday, the 11-year anniversary of the day her son was wrongfully arrested by Chinese authorities.
“We have the people, We have the military. We have the money. What’s the problem?“
Mark Swidan was 38-years old when he went to China on business looking for flooring for construction work in November 2012. He was arrested after his driver and translator were allegedly found with drugs.
WH OFFICIALS CONFIRM DATE, LOCATION FOR BIDEN’S US MEETING WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI
A United Nations report determined that Swidan, who has no history of drugs, was not in possession of drugs on his person or in his hotel room, and records show he was not even in China at the time of the alleged offense.
The U.N. report said that the 11 other people arrested with Swidan as part of the alleged trafficking ring were unable to identify him and that the conviction was based on his visiting a factory that had once been used to manufacture methamphetamine.
Swidan’s mother told Fox News Digital she has “no confidence” that Biden and the State Department will be able to secure her son’s release during Wednesday’s visit and bases that lack of confidence on communications she has received from government officials who are “sympathetic” but unable to give her any concrete answers on where things stand with her son.
BIDEN’S FAILED FOREIGN POLICY WITH CHINA IS BASED ON A DISASTROUS IDEA
The State Department, in a press release earlier this year in response to China upholding Swidan’s death sentence, referred to his situation as “wrongfully detained” and said the Biden administration is “personally focused” on securing his release.
Swidan’s mother told Fox News Digital that he has not had a medical exam in 9 years and has 4 abscessed molars, several fractures, a dislocated knee, hands that have been broken 5-7 times due to torture and that he has lost over 100 lbs in confinement. She added that the last time a U.S. official visited Swidan, last August, the official was “horrified” at Swidan’s physical condition.
Swidan said that the Biden administration has consistently told her they have a “plan” to secure Mark’s release but that they have been tight-lipped about what that plan entails.
“I don’t think you ever had a plan,” Swidan said. “I don’t think you’ve talked to them about Mark. Everything I see in the news on every single station, everything I see points to you having a speech, having a good old time, praising China and saying congratulations on your historic whatever and that does not sit right with me. China only understands strength.”
JOE BIDEN RECEIVED $40K IN ‘LAUNDERED CHINA MONEY’ FROM BROTHER IN 2017, COMER SAYS
Swidan’s mother says she was told by a U.S. official on Friday that her son had been moved to a new facility, Dongguan Prison, the previous week which she says she should have been told earlier.
“I said how come nobody told me?” Swidan recounted to Fox News Digital. “You can send me an email. It takes 2 minutes and I’m up all night anyway, because it’s daytime in China and I don’t want to miss a phone call.”
GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, who represents Swidan’s home state of Texas, told Fox News Digital that “China’s imprisonment of Mark Swidan is unjust and an outrage.”
“The Biden administration has everything they need to make his release a priority in their talks with the Chinese Communist Party,” Cruz said. “Congress has spoken out repeatedly and unanimously to urge them to use the full range of American diplomacy to bring him home. Enough is enough. It must be a top priority.”
Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn, in a resolution earlier this year along with Cruz, wrote that the “human rights abuses Mark has suffered at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party are horrific and I will continue to push the Biden administration to expedite his case and secure his release.”
“Mark Swidan, a Texan, has been in a Chinese detention facility for over a decade for a crime he couldn’t have committed—he wasn’t even in the country,” Texas GOP Rep. Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, posted on X last week. “When Chairman Xi flies to the US this month, the White House must demand Mark is on that plane with him.”
CALIFORNIA CITY REMOVES HOMELESS IN BEAUTIFICATION BEFORE BIDEN’S SUMMIT WITH CHINESE PRESIDENT XI
A State Department spokesperson directed a request for comment on any conversation Biden may have with Xi to the White House but said that the department “continually” raises Swidan’s captivity during meetings with Chinese officials and that there is “no greater priority” than Americans detained overseas.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News Digital.
Swidan’s mother expressed frustration that Blinken seems to “running from country to country handing out money like its water” while her son sits in prison sleeping on a concrete floor for over a decade.
“Throw them [China] a billion and let him out, you know, because with hostage situations that’s what they want,” Swidan said, adding that the Biden administration has had the “gall” to tell her in the past that they don’t know what China wants in exchange for her son.
Swidan says she worries every day that her son’s deteriorating condition and inhumane living conditions will lead him to take his own life in prison before his release can be secured.
“I’m not going to give up hope and even if something happens to him, God forbid, I’m still going after these people,” Swidan told Fox News Digital. “Everybody that dragged their feet and made excuses whether they’re in China or in America. They are going to see the biggest global lawsuit they’ve ever seen and I don’t even want one penny out of it. I just want them to know what they did to this man.“
Biden is set to meet with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco, California and the White House says the two leaders are expected to discuss the relationship between the United States and China, including the importance of maintaining “open lines of communication.”
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With 9 weeks to go until the first votes, Trump remains commanding front-runner as GOP field keeps shrinking
It’s a slimmer field, but it’s the same story, as former President Donald Trump remains the commanding front-runner for the Republican nomination with nine weeks to go until the first votes are cast.
Sen. Tim Scott’s suspension of his White House campaign on Sunday came two weeks after former Vice President Mike Pence departed the 2024 GOP race. And four lesser known candidates who failed to make the debate stage have also dropped out, as a Republican field that once included over a dozen contenders keeps shrinking.
With the Jan. 15 Iowa caucuses – which lead off the Republican presidential nomination calendar – fast approaching, Trump retains dominating double-digit leads over his nomination rivals in the latest surveys in the early voting states, and holds even larger massive advantages in national polls.
The over-arching question going forward is if the smaller field of candidates will allow one of the remaining contenders to make it a competitive race against Trump as the primary calendar progresses.
DESANTIS, HALEY, OR TRUMP – WHICH CANDIDATE BENEFITS FROM TIM SCOTT’S DEPARTURE FROM THE 2024 RACE?
“Nothing’s changed. Trump’s still ahead. And right now he’s on the trajectory to win,” longtime Republican consultant Dave Carney, a veteran of numerous presidential campaigns, told Fox News.
Pointing to the single digit support Scott held in the polls as he suspended his campaign, Carney said “It’s not like Scott getting out of the race is going to reshuffle the deck completely. His support isn’t going to change the dynamics that much.”
WHY TIM SCOTT DROPPED OUT OF THE 2024 REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL RACE
But Carney also emphasized that “there’s no way to spin this other than its good news for Nikki Haley. We’ll see if she can take advantage of that.”
Haley, the former two-term South Carolina governor who served as ambassador to the United Nations during the Trump administration, is battling two-term Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for second place in the GOP nomination race, far behind Trump.
FORMER GOP PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE URGES SOME REMAINING CONTENDERS TO FOLLOW HIS FOOTSTEPS
Longtime Republican strategist David Kochel, pointing to DeSantis and Haley, told Fox News that the winnowing of the Republican field “is a good thing for the two people who still have a shot at becoming the Trump alternative.”
“Trump’s already in the finals,” said Kochel, a veteran of numerous presidential and statewide campaigns in Iowa.
And he highlighted that DeSantis and Haley are “trying to construct some plausible path to get a one-on-one shot with Trump that everybody agrees is essential to any notion that he can be derailed from getting the nomination.”
While DeSantis has the stronger name ID from coast to coast and leads Haley in the national polls, she’s tied DeSantis in the latest surveys in Iowa and leads him in New Hampshire – which votes second – and her home state, which holds the first southern contest.
FIREWORKS AT LAST WEEK’S THIRD REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL PRIMARY DEBATE
Haley’s enjoyed a rise in the polls thanks in part to well-regarded performances in the three Republican presidential primary debates. Haley’s campaign announced on Monday that they are reserving $10 million to run TV, radio and digital ads in Iowa and New Hampshire starting next month.
“We have plenty of money that we’re going to be on TV with,” Haley touted this past weekend in an interview on “Fox News Sunday.” “We’re going to be strong in New Hampshire. We’re going to be strong in South Carolina, because we spent our money well. We’ve got great ground games in every one of those states. And we’re going to keep surging.”
But Iowa comes first, and DeSantis last week landed the endorsement of GOP Gov. Kim Reynolds, who’s very popular with Hawkeye State Republicans. Reynolds backing was a much-needed boost for DeSantis to alter a negative narrative.
DeSantis is also aiming to land the endorsement of Bob Vander Plaats, who leads the Family Leader, a top social conservative organization in Iowa, a state where evangelical voters play an out-sized role in Republican presidential politics.
“Tim Scott and Mike Pence were surging resources in Iowa, looking to attract evangelical supporters, and unlike Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis is making headway with those voters,” DeSantis campaign communications director Andrew Romeo argued in a statement to Fox News.
Kochel said “I think Iowa’s going to be more determinative than ever as to who’s going to have momentum going into New Hampshire and South Carolina.”
“Trump already has a ticket. There’s maybe two more and maybe one more” coming out of Iowa, he forecast.
And Kochel predicted “a pretty fierce contest” in the weeks ahead between DeSantis and Haley.
The 2024 GOP field also includes former two-term New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie – who’s concentrating most of his firepower on New Hampshire – and multi-millionaire biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy – a 38-year-old first-time candidate who appears to draw much of his support from Trump’s MAGA wing of the party. North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum – who didn’t make the stage at the third debate – and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchison – who failed to qualify for the past two showdowns – are running long-shot campaigns.
Seasoned Iowa-based Republican strategist and communicator Jimmy Centers cautioned that “everyone needs to be clear-eyed that former President Trump will win the Iowa caucus on Jan. 15.”
“The question is whether Gov. DeSantis or Amb. Haley come in a strong enough second place finish where they put a sizable gap between themselves and whomever comes in third to be able to say to Republicans in New Hampshire and beyond that this is a two-person race,” he spotlighted.
Centers said Haley “has clearly performed very well” since the start of the debates “and voters are responding to that in Iowa.”
But he added that DeSantis enjoys some “momentum right now after Gov. Reynolds endorsement last week.”
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